On Thursday, the Afghan Taliban issued a statement dismissing a planned religious conference in Kabul next month as “clear American intrigue.” The Afghan peace envoy had proposed the conference in a visit to Pakistan in November.

The conference, organized by the Afghan government, is expected to draw Muslim scholars from all over the world to condemn suicide bombings as un-Islamic, the Christian Science Monitor reports. It will build on the October pronouncement by the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Abdulaziz bin Abdullah Al al-Sheikh, that explicitly condemned suicide bombings. Although an official gathering of Afghan religious scholars this summer determined that suicide attacks “have no legitimate foundation in Islam,” its declaration, like other similar pronouncements in the past, has clearly been ignored by the Taliban and allied militant groups.

The Afghan Taliban criticized the forthcoming conference as an attempt to “create mistrust among Mujahideen, paving a way for the US to perpetually control Afghanistan,” according to the Express Tribune.

The Taliban policy statement called instead for the Ulema (religious scholars) — especially those in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia — to support the mujahideen, their “spiritual offspring,” as a matter of religious duty and to boycott the “fraudulent gathering.”

Umar Daudzai, the Afghan ambassador, has urged Maulana Fazlur Rehman, who heads an influential faction of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam in Pakistan, to promote participation in the conference, the Express Tribune reports. Rehman, who has supported the Taliban, was himself the target of an attempted suicide bombing in 2011.

3 Comments

This is actually an extremely significant event that targets The Heart, Soul & Brains of the Taliban & like minded organizations. If The West & Muslim Nations are in the least bit serious in their desire to strike at whats most important, cherished, valued, etc., to the Islamic Internationale this is It!
Dogma, Doctrine & Ideology are the core of which fuels The Islamic Internationale & provides them traction among the audiences they target. Any individual with more than a passing curiosity in
The Cold War would know how important Dogma, Doctrine & Ideology are to prosecuting ones cause.
This is an incredibly monumental opportunity that shouldn’t be taken lightly or ignored. ‘This’ is the Key to winning the GWOT.
Thank you for posting this Lisa. You never seize to amaze me.